Don't Listen to Coincidence
by PlayPrayDie
Summary: Murdock had seen him. And the shadows had peeled away. He used to think that was a good thing. Now he knows. Sometimes it's best to just pull the covers over your head like a kid and pretend the monster under the bed will just go away. Sometimes it's the only thing that keeps you going.
1. Caught

Murdock could see him.

That was the _problem_, in the end, wasn't it?

He hated himself for this. For having to _wonder_.

But there it was. The crux of the matter.

_Murdock_ could see him.

He'd been a mess, once. That was when he first met Green Eyes. Back when he first came to the VA hospital, after the incident.

At the time, he hadn't had a single clue that it would be one of the five most defining moments of his life.

No. Don't think about it.

The first had been when he left the little life he'd been living on the farm in order to allow himself to get recruited. He hadn't thought much of it at the time. In the beginning, it had just been a way for him to get access to the higher education he'd found his mind craving. In the end, it had set the course for the whole way his life would play out.

The second had been at the height of his prime. The _incident_. Then, his admission to the hospital, and the system, and having to relean how to live again. Only this time, learning to ignore the cracks.

The third was-

Don't think about it don't think about it don't think about it don't think about it-

-when he learned how to... _manage_... the _strangeness_ inside of his head.

The fourth was his team. _His Team_. The A-Team, and the eight years they spent together, and all those successful missions under their belt. Eight years of laughter and darkness and smiles and tears and playing late night games in fox holes and extracting bullets with sweaty fingers.

The fifth had been the betrayal. Getting framed. And then being fugitives on the run. When the A-Team turned into _The A-Team_. From simply that one crazy team that pulled the rediculous stunts to being _that one team_, the one that had gone rogue and worked as mercenaries, and God _help_ you if they showed up on your doorstep.

None the less.

There was no way that Green Eyes wouldn't be on there.

After all.

Murdock. Had _seen_. **_Him._**


	2. Lost

Once upon a time, there was a man named H.M. Murdock. And he'd been crazy.

And he'd raged. Raged and ranted and snapped and the world had gone _wrong_ around him and he'd wanted to _kill_ anyone who came too close. And God help him on the days when he was just lucid enough to realize that the closest person he had access to was _himself_.

He'd met Green Eyes during his first encounter with electroshock therapy.

They'd been wheeling him out just as they were wheeling Murdock _in_. And just for a moment, the haze had listed- just long enough for him to _see_ the kid.

Because Christ. He'd been a kid. If Murdock had seen him on the street, he wouldn't have thought that the kid was old enough to be _recruited_ yet.

But there he'd been. In that wheelchair. Being strapped in, that vacant look in his eyes.

Pale skin mutilated with a latticework of scars. Hands were a mess. Arms weren't much better.

The kid's _face_ made him want to _sob._

And just as Murdock had thought that his quota for being sane for the day was up, those green eyes had locked onto his. And _focused_. Just for a _moment_.

A sharp stare like a bolt from the blue.

And Murdock had known, deep in his bones, that the world consisted only of _them_ in that one brief moment. Like those _disurbingly_ beautiful antifreeze green eyes had looked into his _soul_ and judged it worthy.

And then he'd been gone.


	3. Searching

He hadn't remembered Green Eyes existed until the next time they'd met. Passing in the halls again.

This time, when Murdock was on his way out of Observation. And Green Eyes was on his way into it.

Murdock had mostly healed from where he'd tried to jab the pencil into his neck.

Green Eyes still had patches of blood on his clothes.

Far from how sedate he'd been last time, Green Eyes had been- _feral_. He'd been fighting tooth and nail, fang and claw, struggling so hard that even despite his slight frame, it was taking half a dozen orderlies to keep him restrained.

Murdock had been oddly proud of his fellow patient.

Yeah. Stick it to them.

Almost like he'd _heard_ Murdock's passing thought, Green Eyes had _stopped_. Right there in the middle of the hall. And _stared_ at him.

And there were those green eyes. Those twin lime green gems that made him wonder if maybe he was hallucinating because they couldn't _possibly_ be real.

And for the very first time- the voices went _silent_.

They'd never been silent. Not since before the incident.

But right now, it was like-

Like they were _afraid_ of Green Eyes.

There had been no more struggle. The kid had gone quietly to Observation. Hadn't even made a peep when they tranq'd him.

That had been that. Murdock had been lead off. _Isolation for a week, and then back to your room if you behave._

So why had he felt like, for that whole week, those green eyes had still been watching him?


	4. Truce

There was something different.

It had taken Murdock some time to come to terms with it. To realize it. To get a _handle_ on it.

But that was the _point_. He _did_ have a handle on it.

All it took anymore was the _threat_ of _remembering_ the pair of the most _fantastic _eyes he'd ever seen in his life, and it was like the other inside his head just- went _docile_. The voices only dared to speak when spoken to. The hallucinations stayed in little, out of the way corners of the room. The fits only bothered him when he _let_ them.

Somehow, in the war he'd been fighting against his mind, using emeralds as ammunition, he'd managed to settle a sort of even ground.

Murdock didn't push too hard. That was the mistake the doctors were making. They were trying to _make_ the other _go away_. To relinquish its hold completely. And that hadn't been working.

So instead, Murdock had managed to wrangle a truce out of the inside of his head.

The madness was allowed to stay and make itself at home, so long as it did _what_ he wanted_, when_ he wanted.

So one day, when he'd been feeling rather charitable towards the nurses and the orderlies- because even though _he _was fine with them, the _other_ didn't _like_ them, and it made him want to not like them as well, and in the end he'd settled for simply toying with them- he'd asked them if he was allowed to have visitors.

The answer had been _no_ at first.

And then the second month he'd been on good behavior, that _no_ had been a _yes_ right up until they discovered it was another patient he wanted to visit. And apparently, one who was still alternating between Intensive Care and Observation and Isolation and back again.

At first, he'd asked, and his questions had been met with a resounding _can't tell you anything- it's restricted access and we have a non-disclosure policy for privacy_.

It had taken him _six months_.

Six months of nothing worse than a few harmless pranks and some benign shenanigans to convince them that he really _was_ nothing more than _oh, that silly Murdock._ And then they'd finally started to talk to him.

Green Eyes had been there for quite a while. He _hadn't_ been a part of the rangers- or even the United States military. He'd been MI-6.

Something had happened in England. Homegrown terrorism. Underground cults. Ritualistic serial killings. Societal upheval.

MI-6 had covered it all up. More for the sake of saving face than anything else.

And afterwards, as a part of sealing a _deal_ between America and Britain, MI-6 had asked the VA institute to look after the kid as part of it. Because he'd been- _something_, back in England. _Something_ _important_.

Important enough to warrant concern.

Murdock had filled in the blanks well enough on his own.

Green Eyes had to have been a player in taking down the terrorists. He'd probably infiltrated their ranks and played up his relatively young age so no one ever suspected him of anything other than a branwashed brat being indoctrinated into the cult.

If there were any of them left over, after the 'societal upheval' had been covered up, then there was probably a big old fat target on the kid's back. Anywhere in England likely wasn't safe for him, anymore, when anyone could be looking.

It sounded like idiocy. It felt like _abandonment_. It _reeked_ of _betrayal_.

And really, in the end, they were just trying to save the kid's life.


	5. Mutual

There was something to be said that Murdock could think completely rationally about Green Eyes when he wasn't in the same room. But the second he came face to face with the kid, it was like-

_Fuck._ It was like being in a warm room and then suddenly taking a breath of freezing cold air.

Life proceeded on as it usually did. Murdock's brain continued to be comfortably mushy- but not _that_ mushy.

And then, just when he'd settled into having his fun by breaking up the droll routine of the institute-

He'd been being escorted around a corner by an orderly named Fischer. And run nearly smack into a mess.

Green Eyes had been standing there in the middle of the hall. Back against the wall. Staff stood back a good distance, trying to speak to him- trying to calm him down.

It took until Murdock realized he had a _sword_ in his hands to realize why.

It was, to his abashed guilt, his first thought to wonder _how the hell had the kid gotten that thing in here?_

His _second_ thought, and one he was far more proud of, was _how do I stop this before it gets any worse?_

And so he'd stepped around Fischer. Out into the open. Behind the doctors and the nurses and the orderlies. But still visable.

And he'd _focused_ on the emerald gaze. Concentrated on it. On how it had torn the cobwebs away and forced the darkness out of the recesses of his mind.

The kid's stare _snapped_ to him.

"Don't." Murdock recommended. He really, _truly_ meant it.

And Green Eyes had stared at him. That soul-piercing stare turned on him once more, like the boy was trying to discern _every_ motivation for every _breath_ Murdock had ever taken in his life.

Then, he'd reached out- and placed the sword on the ground.

That had been the third time Murdock met the kid. And the first time he'd spoken to him.

Watching as the orderlies sedated him and hauled him away.

Murdock got his permission to visit the kid nearly a week later.


	6. Curiosity

The two of them had sat across a table from one-another.

Murdock had been forced to agree to a pair of handcuffs. So he wouldn't get rowdy.

Lucky, he mused.

Green Eyes had been stuffed into the whole _straightjacket_ and then strapped into his seat.

They hadn't talked at first. Just sat. And watched.

Murdock noted things about the kid. He had a long, strange mark across the bridge of his nose with crept from one cheekbone to the tip of his eyebrow. It faded into a jagged cut across his forehead, which Murdock absentmindedly deduced as some kind of shrapnel. There were a few scars on his opposite cheek, one of them just barely nicking the corner of his lip, which looked like claw marks. Plus an assortment of other tiny, almost unnoticable scars- fingernail scratches and papercut slices and little nicks that looked like they'd come from splinters- which weren't as _visible_ at first sight.

He was thin, and pale, and _tiny_. None of those were surprising, except for perhaps how short he truly was- this _was_ a _hospital_, after all. Slightly wavy dark hair approached his chin, a few locks near the back actually brushing his shoulders.

And then, those eyes.

Unnatural. He'd even go so far as to say _inhuman_.

And for the first time that Murdock had ever allowed himself to realize it, slightly terrifying.

Every bone in the kid's body, every curve beneath that straightjacket, even the almost unnoticable way his nostrils flared like he was _scenting_ Murdock from across the table all _screamed_ predator.

His musings had been interrupted by one of the doctors who were sitting in on their 'playdate', as they'd called it.

"Don't tell me that after all this time of expressing your interest in young Mr. Evans, you have nothing to say to him?"

"I've got plenty I want to say." Murdock replied, barely even thinking about it. Met those eyes. Held them.

They were still kind of terrifying.

But he didn't really _want_ to be afraid.

"But sometimes words lose meaning." he murmured.

He'd been escorted out shortly afterwards.

But a few days later, he was told he would have another opportunity to meet with Green Eyes- no. _Evans_.- on Sunday.

Apparently, he'd been more complacent in the last three days then he had the entire rest of his stay with them.

The same doctor who'd been an idiot last time came forward and _looked_ at him. And then-

"Whatever it is you're saying," he muttered, "Keep saying it."


	7. Conclusion

Second meeting had gone much like the first.

They'd studied one another like hounds in seperate kennels. Or at least, Murdock _felt_ like an old hound dog. But he was increasingly getting the feeling he was staring down a _wolf_.

He could tell some things. Just by their silent interaction.

Evans was young. But _never_ naive.

There was nothing in those eyes that felt even _remotely_ like _innocence_.

Another thing he'd picked up on was that Green Eyes actually had a rather sardonic sense of humor.

The tiny flutter of an eyelash. A furtive _glance_. The way he could- without moving a single muscle in his face, somehow get the light to cast itself over him in _just_ such a way, for a single moment- make himself look like he was so terribly, dreadfully _bored_ with the whole rediculous business.

And then it would be gone. And he'd smooth over, watching Murdock almost _mockingly_ with that expressionless face, like _what? I'm sorry, did you need something?_

Murdock grinned at him from across the table. Hands curling together.

He _liked_ the kid.

Third thing he'd discovered.

He _wasn't_ entirely sure the kid liked _himself_.

Little, massive tip offs. Tiny little things, painted in broad strokes.

The kid's apathy- it wasn't _forced_, it just... wasn't _meaningful_ to him to express emotion.

He'd seen _so_ much. Been betrayed _so_ many times. Been jaded on every subject mankind had ever seen fit to corrupt.

He'd looked at the world, and seen nothing but shit and filth and rot.

And when he'd looked into himself, all he'd seen was a mirror.

And it had gotten worse. And worse. But the kid had held on because he had something to _do_. Something worth _doing_.

And then one day, when they'd tied up every loose end and wrapped up everything that needed to get done... when, for the first time, the responsibility of life _hadn't_ outweighed the pain of living it-

Evans had just shut down.

Murdock didn't known how he knew that.

But looking into those green eyes, he _knew_.

He'd shut down.

But he still had enough _pride_ left, deep down in his bones, that he _had_ to struggle. He _had_ to fight back, if only simply because there was something there to fight against.


	8. Extrapolating

They continued like this for a while.

Murdock was getting- better. Well, he wanted to _call_ it better. More like- more _familiar_ with his madness. It was getting easier to handle.

It was _almost_- he found himself thinking on occasion- _fun_.

Better than dull old normality, anyways.

His thoughts went back to Green Eyes often enough. The two of them still met once a week or so.

Apparently, it had been good for both of them.

Green Eyes had been complacent since they'd started having regular visits.

He and Murdock never talked.

Evans _could_ talk. He knew that. There was too much glittering _intelligence_ behind those eyes for him to be completely catatonic.

He wasn't vacant. Just... _vacationing_.

But what really struck Murdock was how _strange_ it was. He could be thinking about Green Eyes and come up with any number of perfectly logical, rational explanations for his strange _presence_- all of them almost _untinged_ by the touch of the other in that moment.

The crazies in his head didn't seem to want to have anything to do with anything in his skull that had to do with Green Eyes.

The madness still cowered slightly whenever he thought about it too hard.

But then- when he was in the kid's presence... all those logical, rational thoughts went out the window.

Reading body language

turned into _suppressing microexpressions_ which spun itself into even _projecting attributes onto a blank slate._

The _alien-ness_ of the boy's pake skin and _glowing_ green eyes and unnatural strength could all so _easily_ get explained away, in the moment.

The _impossibility_ of the almost physical _aura_ of predatory _danger _around him, the prickle down the back of Murdock's neck which made him think of flying in a storm, the almost imperceptible tang of something which reminded him of ozone _but not quite_ were all so _easily_ passed off later on as delusion, after the fact.

But then he would come back, one week later. And look into those eyes.

And in that moment, it would be so _obvious_. So _stupidly_ obvious.

Of course the boy was scary.

Mankind was _always_ scared of what they couldn't understand.

And no matter how much Murdock felt like he somehow _knew_ this person without ever saying a word to him, one of the few things he also _knew_, deep down in his gut, was that he would never, _ever_ understand exactly _who_ the kid was. What he had been through.

And if the tiny voices of madness in the back of his mind dared to whisper to him, in the artificial dark from behind his eyelids, just before he fell asleep- the time when they were least cowed by the memory of Green Eyes, when they sometimes even dared to _comment_ on him- that he would never, _ever_ understand exactly _what_ the kid was, either... well. That was beside the point.

Murdock _liked_ the kid.

But when he was sitting, in that little room across the table from a pair of brilliant green eyes, he'd never been under any delusions that his life hadn't hung in the balance.

If Evans had _really_ wanted to- _really_ been determined to- then none of the drugs, or the restraints, or the orderlies would have been able to stop him from killing Murdock.

Which made him wonder if maybe the kid liked him a little bit, too.


	9. Found

Murdock had to get out of here.

He didn't know what it was. The silence or the noise, the freedom or the restraint- or maybe it was just the _pitying_ looks he got. The fact that they would let him get away with anything because of his _condition_.

So long as his antics were suitably non-threatening to himself or the other patients or staff, he was fairly sure he could have gotten away with turning the hospital upside-down brick by brick.

He had to get the hell out of here. He was getting _sick_ of this.

Nothing helped. Nothing was _right_ here. This place- was just a phenomenal waste of time.

That was how he found himself walking down the hallway disguised as a doctor, in a doctor's white coat with glasses on. But he wasn't heading down to the lobby, and he _cursed_ that.

He had thought- just for a moment, for one crazy, wild moment- about taking Green Eyes with him.

And now it wouldn't leave him alone.

He _had_ to take Green Eyes. Evans. No, _Evans_. He had to take him because- because-

Because he just had to. Okay?

But the second he'd located the room that Evans called home-

Cold

and

Green Eyes looked up at him from the very center of the cell. White and padded.

But his hands were free.

He was wearing the jacket. But for the very first time, his hands were free.

and _darkness_ and

Murdock was going to die.

He'd been the little puppy sitting across from the wolf this whole time. And now, just when he'd thought to escape his kennel, he'd made a mistake. A _massive_ mistake.

Because he'd just stumbled onto the wolf without its muzzle.

and _silence_ and

He was frozen. Green Eyes stood there, watching him.

Then, he took a step forward. Towards Murdock.

and_ churning_ and

He stopped just a foot away. Hands reached out, grasping either side of Murdock's head. Lost in the depths of those long sleeves.

He was about to die. Oh _God_ he was about to die.

Green Eyes was about to snap his neck, and he could barely even _breathe_, much less move his legs to run.

and _death._

And Evans pulled his head down in order to kiss his forehead.

When he took a step back, it was with the sharpest, most lucid, most _piercing_ stare that those green eyes had ever given him.

"Luck favors children and fools." he whispered.

Or had he? Had that voice been from _him_, or was it only inside Murdock's head? It _echoed_ in his ears like Evans had said it, but it _wrapped itself_ into his mind, curling there, like it _meant_ something- like those words had _always_ meant something, to him, just like 'liberty and justice for all' stood for _America_, and that was something worth dying for.

He didn't even have the grace left to process the kid's voice. It hadn't _sounded_ like a voice, in the end. It had just sounded like- _power_ with _meaning_.

Evans turned away. Walked to the middle of the room. Stared up at the padded white walls.

And just for a second, the lightbulb-

Those white walls were painted with blood, jagged and curling and smooth symbols and signs that made Murdock's eyes **hurt** and made him want to turn away and sob, to turn away and run away and never look back, and the cloth was ripped and torn in places and the material within oozed out in a black sludge, like hot tar, and he wanted to scream and never stop screaming and scrape his eyes out of his head because it hurt, the sight of this, and his ears were ringing like something was trying to burrow its way into them, and his lungs burned with that scent of not-quite-ozone-

flickered-

And Evans was standing there except now it wasn't the kid. Not really. All that thing was was a ghost of a reflection of a shadow, standing there, with twin pinpricks of green staring back out of it like green stars in a patch of the night in the shape of a person, and that mass of writhing darkness was reaching up, reaching out, reaching back-

-the world _slammed_ back into place.

Evans had reached out and pointed his hand, still smothered in sleeves, straight at the lightbulb.

It had stopped flickering immediately.

Murdock had pressed himself against the doorframe. He wasn't even sure if his heart was beating anymore.

Green Eyes stared back at him.

He watched as Murdock scrambled for the door and pushed himself out.

As he slammed it shut behind him. Sank down to his knees. Gasping for breath.

Might have been a minute. Might have been an hour.

But he managed to struggle to his feet.

Don't think about it don't think about it don't think about it don't think about it-

Gathered his poise. Wiped the sweat off his forehead onto one sleeve.

Don't think about it don't think about it don't think about it don't think about it-

Managed to straighten his glasses. Marched downstairs, trying to look like he belonged.

Don't think about it don't think about it don't think about it don't think about it-

He was just pulling the surgical mask over his face when a nurse came to his side and asked him if he was available to do stitches.

He'd been blindsided so thouroughly that he'd been flustered into agreeing.

After the ensuing meeting that changed his life, which turned into meeting the first two people in _years_ who _hadn't_ practically let him get away with murder- the first of whom had been _delightfully_ angry with him for stitching a lightning bolt into his arm, and the second of which had reacted with _beautiful_ indignation for what may have been a _small_ mistake on his part, but then again he'd been _curious_ and the man had smelled like gasoline so wasn't it _logical_ to test his theory?

And then he'd laid eyes on Colonel Hannibal.

And the man had told him they were taking him away. He was leaving.

No more tests. No more meds. No more white walls.

And the whole _glorious_ thing had turned into a mess of firefights and _plans_ and rockets and he hadn't been in the air for so long that it felt like _coming back to life_-

And later, long afterwards when he was laying in his new bunk in the small, four-man barracks that he and his new team- _team!_- shared, with the man he'd lit on fire sleeping beneath him, the almost _soothing_ snores of the black man who was still nursing his arm and Murdock felt rather guilty for nearly dumping out the back of his chopper- he'd looked across at the man opposite him, in the other top bunk, and pondered about how his life had somehow been turned completely upside-down in the last twenty-four hours.

The man had turned to him and _smiled_.

And Murdock had been reminded-

Don't think about it don't think about it don't think about it don't think about it-

-that luck favored children and fools.

He wondered if those words had been a reassurance- foreknowledge that Murdock's luck would soon change- or a blessing- that something had been _gifted_ to him, that nudged his luck in the right direction.

He would have wondered about it a lot harder. If he'd been thinking about it.

Which he most _definitely_ wasn't.


End file.
